


haunt me

by ameliafuckingshepherd



Series: me taking out my problems on the avengers [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Eating Disorders, F/M, Hospitals, I Made Myself Cry, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Recovery, Self-Hatred, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Suicide Attempt, They all have issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 02:02:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18420549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliafuckingshepherd/pseuds/ameliafuckingshepherd
Summary: you either recover or you die.there's no other way, no third option.





	haunt me

**Author's Note:**

> this is formatted very similarly to my other story Grim, but it's less detailed, more rushed. anyways, that's code for "I wrote another story about my own struggles because I feel the desperate need for other people to understand what I'm going through even though they never will

 

natasha has seen things no one else should have to see.

 

done things no sane human ever would.

 

she can't take the horrors plastered behind her eyes, but she things she sees when she opens them aren't much better.

 

"Steve?"

 

"yeah, Nat?"

 

"would you be sad if I was gone?"

 

A body shifts and she can almost sense his worry through the darkness.

 

"of course."

 

"okay." but her voice is broken and near silent, tears dropping steadily down her cheeks.

 

he turns over, but keeps her hand safely in his, like he doesn't trust her not to leave.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"I'm worried about you, Tasha," Clint says. they sit on his porch drinking coffee while the kids run around the house getting ready for school. 

 

 

"I'm fine."

 

"you're like a ghost. you're hardly even here anymore."

 

natasha bites her lip and closes her eyes, unable to look her best friend in his face and lie. "i'm here, Clint. I'm always going to be here."

 

she kisses her niece and nephews goodbye, hugs Laura.

 

clint walks her out to her car. 

 

"I'm not going to lose you."

 

"I never asked you to."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Summer passes painfully quickly, leaves turning to orange, turning to dust. 

 

Natasha watches herself grow sicker, but none of it seems real.

 

she breaks an arm. at the doctors' appointment, she weighs in at one hundred and seven pounds. she knew it was bad, but never thought it would be like this.

 

she's sicker every day. she's trapped, trapped in the concrete prison of her own head. she wants to tell the truth, wants to scream "this voice in my head is eating me alive and i can't make it stop".

 

but she can't. 

 

she stays silent, stays dying. 

 

and nothing changes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"you need help." 

 

Natasha shakes her head. Steve has his own issues, had his own scars. she's seen the blood in the bathroom sink. seen razor blades in the cabinets. she never says anything, because he never mentions when he caught her with her fingers down her throat. he didn't say anything when she stopped training, stopped spending time with the team.

 

the others did, but not him. they are there for one another, there for support. they all have different ways of getting through.

 

why is he saying she needs help now?

 

 

* * *

 

 

they all sit down like they used to arrange themselves to watch a movie or play games. 

 

something is different, something in the faces of her family.

 

Pepper starts, but she can't seem to get any words out. Tony puts an arm around her, and she claps a hand over her mouth to halt a sob. 

 

Pepper has known Natasha longest out of everyone here.

 

Bruce takes over, explaining in a professional manner why they're all here. he tells her if she doesn't stop, she'll die.

 

Natasha stares at the wall, because what the hell is she supposed to say to that?

 

Thor joins in next, but he fumbles, trying to find the right words, and ends up hugging her tightly and telling her they all love her more than anything.

 

Natasha can't be responsible for their pain. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

She goes into the hospital two days after Christmas.

 

at ninety-seven pounds, they thread a tube down her throat and pump her full of the food she can't bring herself to eat, no matter how hard she tries.

 

the residential treatment facility is on the ninth floor of a hospital in the middle of the city. the staff is nice, they let her keep her laptop, let her wander around the building at will. 

 

someone visits her every day. she realizes they have a schedule. Clint on Mondays, Pepper and Tony on Tuesday, Thor and Bruce on Wednesday, Wanda and Vision on Thursday, Steve, Bucky, and Sam on Friday. The nurses don't let them visit on weekends, because Natasha needs her space.

 

At least during the week, she has some sense of normalcy.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve spends the hight, curled next to her in the hospital bed. She runs her hands through his hair, trying to remember a time when they were both okay. 

 

"I don't think I can keep going," she confides to the darkness. 

 

it stares back, unmoving.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She takes the elevator to the roof, trailing an IV behind her.

 

yesterday, she ripped out the NG tube, screamed, opened her wrists with a scalpel she stole from a crash cart. They've got her pumped full of sedatives and saline and a new type of liquid anti-depressants, still in trial.

 

her team is away on a mission, and she can't go. she hasn't seen any of them in weeks, even Pepper left. 

 

Natasha knows they would have stayed with her if they could, but the world needs them (she needs them more, but she's an Avenger. she doesn't get to be selfish, and she can't ask that of the rest of the team).

 

snow sticks to her hair, smothering the world in silence. her heart burns, wishes so desperately that everything could be normal again she feels it might stop. her legs dangle over the edge of the roof. if a strong enough wind comes, it might just knock her over the edge.

 

she rips out her IV and discards it on the ground behind her. blood trickles down her arm, over the stitches holding her skin together, over the white hospital bracelet.

 

it hurts, god it hurts.

 

she just wants this to be over.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i don't really have an explanation or ending for this. i can't deal with it when it's me, but when it's someone else I'm writing about, it's easier to process. this is my life, my hell. i just want to pretend it's not.


End file.
